Pubdate: Fri, 20 Nov 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Robin Abcarian

THIS POT DELIVERY IS SMOKIN'-FAST

SAN FRANCISCO - Carlos and I are bombing around San Francisco in his 
1999 Maxima, delivering marijuana to people who have ordered it from 
Eaze, a company that many have called the "Uber of cannabis." I had 
forgotten how fast 25-year-old guys like to drive.
But this is good, because Eaze boldly promises customers, all of whom 
must have medical marijuana cards, that they will receive their weed 
in 15 minutes or less.

Our first delivery of the afternoon, about $200 worth of 
sweet-looking bud, goes to a woman who lives in the Mission. She 
comes out to the sidewalk to meet us. She looks as if she's in her 
early 30s, is in the retail wine business, and does not want to give her name.

Eaze marketing head Jamie Feaster, 28, who is along for the ride, 
asks her how she likes Eaze. Any suggestions to make it better? Nope, 
she says. She loves Eaze. "In college," she says, "we wished for 
this." She hands Carlos a wad of cash, and tosses in a $5 tip.

Our second delivery is across town, in South San Francisco. A woman 
who looks to be in her late 20s is standing in front of her apartment 
building waiting for us. Today was her day off, she says, and she's 
already gotten a head start on relaxing, if you catch her drift. She 
buys an eighth of an ounce of OG True, for $40, and throws in a $2 
tip for Carlos.

Our final stop for the afternoon is a row house in the Bay View 
neighborhood. A middle-aged man has ordered a quarter-ounce of 
Chiquita Banana, a.k.a. Banana Crush, for $95. Carlos takes it to his 
door. Another wad of cash, another $5 tip.

"A friend told me about this," said Carlos, who has worked as a 
pharmacy technician. "I thought it was futuristic."

Indeed.

Eaze, which launched 16 months ago, is the brainchild of Keith 
McCarty, a wonky 30-year-old who did not hesitate to leap out of his 
chair in his office and draw on a whiteboard to explain things. The 
company is working out of a tech incubator downtown and will soon be 
moving its 43 employees to more permanent quarters.

McCarty, who grew up in Orange and graduated from Chapman University 
in 2007, was a founding member of Yammer, a sort of Facebook for 
companies. In 2012, Microsoft bought Yammer for $1.2 billion. (Yes, I 
know; McCarty has had two lucrative ideas. You and I have had none.)

Eaze is strictly a technology and logistics company. It has business 
arrangements with dispensaries, which hire the drivers. Eaze provides 
the cannabis menu, but does not handle the product. McCarty won't say 
how many deliveries Eaze processes, only that it makes thousands of 
deliveries a day and is the biggest in its field. The company serves 
the Bay Area, Santa Cruz, the Westside of Los Angeles, Orange County 
and San Diego.

Many users love it, though some reviews are savage. Long delivery 
times, rude drivers and other mix-ups arouse the ire of the 
pot-deprived. Sometimes people become frustrated because they must 
open a Web browser for Eaze, instead of an app. (Apple does not allow 
apps for pot sales.) Sometimes a message on the site says "Eaze is 
asleep" and customers should come back later.

Last summer, David Downs, a San Francisco-based author and columnist 
for the East Bay Express who writes about cannabis, tried out Eaze's 
then-promise to deliver in 10 minutes. It took twice that long, wrote 
Downs (who is married to my niece), but he was still impressed: 
"That's still way faster than you can get a pizza in the Bay."

Still, near-instant gratification remains the sine qua non of this 
venture. "When our data shows delivery times exceed 28 minutes, we 
start to see a drop-off in business," McCarty said. "We are starting 
to create an 'I want it and I want it now' economy."

Recently, Eaze added a feature that is available as an app: Eaze MD. 
It's a convenient way to obtain a medical marijuana card. The 
headline on the tech site Re/code was right to the point: "Get a 
doctor's note to get stoned without leaving home. Legally."

With the prospect of legalized recreational marijuana looming in 
California, businesses nervous about cannabis are coming around. Eaze 
raised $12.5 million from venture capitalists, including a chunk from 
Snoop Dogg, who is probably California's most famous stoner.

McCarty thinks this business model could be expanded to include all 
kinds of medicine. "Today it's cannabis, tomorrow it could be 
Viagra," he says, smiling.

Carlos asked me not to use his last name. He does not want anyone to 
know what he does for work. It's safer that way. He carries a 
trunkful of cannabis product: buds, joints, cannabisinfused candy, 
oils, cookies and some things I don't even recognize.

At the start of each shift, he picks the cases up from a dispensary 
in San Jose and drops them back off at the end of the night. He said 
he earns between $16 and $30 an hour and his tips are usually enough 
to cover gas money.

He waits, like an Uber driver, until his cellphone pings with an 
order. He usually stops a couple of blocks from the customer's home 
to grab the product from his trunk and bag it. It's more discreet that way.

Most of his customers are women, he told me. "I once delivered to a 
girl on a sailboat."

The boat was docked, by the way. All in a daze work.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom